1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to footwear, especially open shoes such as thongs, sandals and slip-ons, where the entire upper of the shoe is reversible in order to change the coloration, texture, aesthetics, indicia, styling, or other appearance of the shoe.
2. Description of the Related Art
A single pair of shoes is typically only harmonious with a single clothing ensemble. To provide versatility, the art has suggested reversing various shoe components to alter the appearance of the shoes. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,049,347 discloses a closed shoe having stationary upper portions of a certain color, and reversible straps which, when reversed, displayed different colors which contrasted with the color of the stationary upper portions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,321 discloses removable shoe tongues for changing the appearance of the tongues relative to the remainder of the shoes. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0039345 also discloses a reversible shoe strap for changing the appearance of a shoe by detaching the strap prior to reversing its position on the shoe.
As advantageous as these known shoes are in changing the appearance of the shoe, experience has shown that they are not altogether satisfactory in practice. Only changing the appearance of single shoe component, for example, a tongue or a strap, does not change the appearance of the entire shoe. The styling and color of the other upper components of the shoe are not changed and, hence, limit the total visual impact of the change, as well as the versatility to achieve a totally different harmonious color scheme.
In addition, the known reversible shoe components have unsightly hardware to enable them to be reversed. Such hardware is not desirable on certain fashion shoes. Also, the hardware includes fasteners which are often difficult to manipulate, because the reversible shoe component typically must be at least partially detached from the shoe upper prior to reversal, and then re-attached to the shoe after the reversal. For some users, such manipulation is often excessive and, hence, not often attempted, thereby defeating the reversibility function.